Two trios vie for council

With Democrats Lenny Remo and Denise Tangney vacating their City Council seats, Republican John McLaughlin became the lone incumbent seeking re-election on Tuesday.

McLaughlin joins a Republican slate with two political neophytes, Marvin Weiss and Maureen Doherty, facing three Democratic newcomers — Fran Adelson, Mike Fagen and Len Torres — in the at-large election, in which the top three vote-getters will win seats. And while each trio touts itself as a team, the Democrats are stressing unity, since they must capture all three seats in order to reverse the Republicans’ 3-2 majority.

McLaughlin, who won a two-year term in November 2007, looks to continue some of what he called the Republican administration’s most important accomplishments since the party wrested control back from the Democrats that year. One was a tax reduction after a 25 percent hike the previous year. “We’ve tried to cut the taxes systematically each year, and the hope is if we can keep the majority, we can keep cutting,” McLaughlin said, citing overtime pay among city employees as the main target.

He noted the seasoned part-time city employees the Republicans had moved to full-time status. “We hired almost 20 of these people full-time and gave them benefits,” said McLaughlin, a retired FDNY lieutenant who is pursuing a fine arts degree at Queens College.

If he is re-elected, he wants to hire a storm management consultant to work on coastal engineering on the beach, a project that could be tied to boardwalk reconstruction. McLaughlin said the city is researching alternative materials for a new, more durable boardwalk, including woods, aluminum strips and sectional concrete. “Maybe we could put a seawall underneath the boardwalk and put a new boardwalk on top,” he said.

Fellow Republican Weiss, whose campaign stressed environmental issues, said he wants to make the city as green as possible. He envisions Long Beach powered more by wind and solar energy, and said he would seek incentives to make all municipal buildings greener and to add solar panels to the beachfront high-rises.